The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1887-02-03
Rejected Patents.
From an Occasional Correspondent

From an Occasional correspondent
WASHINGTON, D. c., Jan. Il, 1887.
There are ten books in the secret |
archives of the United States Patent
Office for which patent attorneys in
Washington would be willing to give
SlOO. 600, They are the books contain |
lug the names and addresses of inven-
tors whose cases have been rejectt d !
duriDg the past ten years. There has
been an aveI age 2S 900 cases filed i'll
the Patent Office every year for the
last ten years, and a yearly average of
Is, coo patents granted. Last year
there We're IS. .UGO applications hled and
2IOOO patents issued, the largest num-
ber in any one year On this show ng
some hing like 90 per cent. of the APP
plicatiOns have betn patented. So
there have boen during the last ten
years about 100,00 rejected cases,
These in part include cases defeated
in inteIftrences and applications al
lowed, but on which final fees b ave
not been paid.
Now good attorneys get fully 80 per
cent of er cases allowed and paten-
ed hence there Must be some reason
for only GO per cent. of the applica-
tons being allowed The reason is
this: Fully 5000 inventors every
year make out their own cases and try
TO ret them through the Patent Office.
\ ot knowing the routine, they almost
invariably get involved in the meshes
of RED taIe and the intricasies of Pr;
tent Office procedure. The difficulty
may be slight, mtIe infOrmality,
defective drawing, an improperly
worded application, an indefinite spec
ifiratiOn, or slight interference re-
quiring few amendments which
skillfuI patent attorney could make in
half an hour. But TO the inventor
these prove an insurmOuntaple obsta
Gle his application is rejected, and
he gives up in disg ust or despair.
Applications for patents in the Uni
ted States Patent Office go first to the
| twenty eight principal examiners, ac-
cordipg to the subject matter. If they
: are rejected, two years are allowed in
which 10 amend them or take other
n cessary action. If no action shall
have be- taken at the end Uf two
! years, such cases are treated as aban-
| doned, and are sent to the division
where they are entered in the books
which the Patent Attorneys so much
coVet. Fully $4,000 of the rel cted
cases of the last ten years fall under
these conditions. AT low estimate.
| %, 900 of these rejected cases, put in
the hands OF a competent attorney,
could be patent. d. A Patent Attor.
ney's fees On such conditional cases
would be about SIS per case-a gross
sum of $625 0G0 Count out disgusted
Inventors and those not able to nav.
still an tnOI NOUS number would oct
out patents if they knew bow. Put
the trouble is just heIe-no one outside
the Patent Office is allowed access to
those file books. And without tn, m
they cannot learn the name and al
DIR ss of inventors Then, again there
are son, Q Is, 900 cases now lying in the
Examiners rooms awaiting the two
wears limit. These are still more val
liable, for if they are taken up before
the time limit expires, the initial fees
do not lapse, while in the other cases
they would have to be repaid.
The practice in the United States
Patent Office was not always thus.
During Grants first term, for period
of about a year, attorneys were allow
ed access to all letter books, and pre-
vious to that had been allowed access
to the files of abandoned cases, but
there was a constant scr mble and not
infrequently downright fights over
them, and about 1875 the Patent Office
made them secret